A poll just found Ted Cruz surging past Donald Trump in Iowa

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has taken his first lead in a poll of a
key nominating state.

A new Monmouth University poll
published Monday had Cruz surging ahead of Donald Trump in
Iowa, the first nominating state that can play a key role in
launching insurgent presidential campaigns.

Among likely Republican voters in the state, Cruz garnered 24%
support to Trump's 19% support. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) had
17% support in the poll, while retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson,
who briefly surged ahead of Trump in the fall, is now down to
13%.

"This marks the first time Ted Cruz has held a lead in any of the
crucial early states. As Ben Carson's stock has fallen, Cruz has
been able to corral most of those voters," Patrick Murray,
director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, wrote in a
press release.

Murray pointed to Rep. Steve King's (R-Iowa)
recent Cruz endorsement as something that could be helping
the senator's numbers, though the poll itself doesn't
suggest much movement.

"Congressman King's endorsement may not be the primary reason for
this swing, but it certainly put a stamp on the Cruz surge in
Iowa," the pollster added.

Other polling experts say that while Cruz's surge in this Iowa
poll appears to be consistent with other polls that show the
senator slowly rising, it's too soon to declare a Cruz surge.

"We are just barely entering a period when these surveys start to
be predictive," Princeton polling expert Samuel Wang
told Business Insider on Monday.

"Rubio and Cruz have been on the rise in the last month or so.
It's not clear whether Trump is fading, or if that's just
up-and-down fluctuation."

University of Michigan polling expert Michael Traugott pointed
out that Monmouth appeared to tweak its survey methods, which
Traugott says could make Monday's poll slightly different than
past Monmouth polls.

"The first thing I notice is that the sample size is only 425,
with a [margin of error] of 4.8 (5)% points," Traugott said
in an email. "They also modified the sample design from the
previous poll to include some general election voters as well as
caucus participants. This has two consequences: The differences
between the leading candidates is unclear (MOE) and the trend
from the previous poll is not easily discernible (design shift)."

Rubio has repeatedly criticized Cruz over his support for the USA
Freedom Act, which curbed the National Security Agency's
telephone metadata surveillance program exposed by former
contractor Edward Snowden.

"I stand strongly on behalf on the ability of this government to
gather intelligence on our adversaries and our enemies,"
Rubio told Fox's Greta Van Susteren last week. "Those keep us
safer. And there are Republicans — including Sen. Cruz — that
have voted to weaken those programs. That's just part of the
record. It's nothing personal."

Though Cruz has promised not to attack his fellow Republican
candidates during the campaign, he hasn't shied away from the
fight with Rubio, charging that the Florida senator is nervous
about Cruz's rise in the polls.

"I think the reason that Rubio's allies have resorted to false
attack ads is they are very, very nervous about our surge in the
polls, about the fact that conservatives are uniting behind our
campaign,"
Cruz told radio host Hugh Hewitt last week.